


preamble

by Summerlightning



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Gen, don't tell mom the babysitter's dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:27:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Summerlightning/pseuds/Summerlightning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Like… like, do they mean pleasurable in the sense of, what, a blue raspberry popsicle on a hot summer day, fresh out the freezer and not melty at all?  Or do they mean the sort of pleasurable that you get when you finish something early and you go outside and it’s still sunny and you were wanting to go swimming, so you’re really happy you’ve still got the time to do that, or—”</p>
<p>Or:  Marceline and Princess Bubblegum have the sex talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	preamble

\---

It’s a Thursday evening and past your bedtime.  An hour ago any other night you would’ve been sleeping already, or at least playing at sleep as Peppermint Butler stalked by your door brandishing a lantern and a scowl, but not tonight, no.  Tonight Peppermint’s off visiting his family on a well-deserved holiday, and you have a babysitter.  Said babysitter doesn’t give two flying shits about it being past your bedtime. 

“I don’t give two flying shits about it being past your bedtime,” Marceline told you some fifteen minutes previous around a mouthful of fresh cherries.  “Why would I?  Geez, kid, hello!”  She spat a pit at you.  “I’m nocturnal.”

What she didn’t say—what she didn’t _need_ to say—is that you are too old for a bedtime.  Technically you have been too old for a bedtime for quite a long while now, but see, acknowledging that is only a small step from admitting you’re also technically too old for a babysitter.  And Marceline likes being your babysitter for a variety of reasons, most of which involve unrestricted access to the royal fruit larder and the kingdom’s year-round supply of sweet stuff. 

You like Marceline being your babysitter too.  You have your own reasons.

So—yes!  It is totally past your bedtime.  No one gives two flying shits about it.

You’re so glad!  All the best things happen when it’s late, you’re finding out.  Peppermint Butler hasn’t ever let you watch nighttime television, but Marceline indulges regularly and doesn’t seem to mind you creeping up next to her on the couch to share in the experience.  You have together watched three episodes of something she calls a true crime drama.  In those three episodes you have witnessed a decapitation (“He was a bad guy,” Marceline says, “chill, Bonni, it’s okay, he’s totally supposed to squirt like that!”), a high speed car chase (“This is educational, right, see—pay attention, she’s gonna crash ’cause the road’s too wet and if she cuts the wheel that hard of _course_ the car’s gotta flip, that’s just physic—oh, oh wow, flames!”), countless explosions, and one particularly intriguing interaction between the mouths of the show’s constantly feuding but nevertheless lovable protagonists.

“Kissing, oh,” you realized.  Your neck got hot and you felt your heartbeat in it, hard up under the skin.  “With tongues.”

“With tongues,” agreed Marceline.  She wagged hers at you, long and purple and forked, and spat another cherry pit your way.  You dodged it that time.

Now a commercial takes up the television screen.  You look away from a cluster of wizards furiously gyrating their hips in time to polka music to instead stare up at Marceline.  She’s finished with the cherries.  As she licks each finger, you say, “Hey Marcy?”

“Yuh-huh?”  She nibbles at the residual red gunk beneath her thumbnail.

“Tell me about sex,” you say.

You’ve tried this before.  Not with Marceline, but with Peppermint Butler and Lumpy Space Princess, and LSP’s friend Melissa, and Lady Rainicorn.  You’ve tried issuing the command the same way every time, straight out and blunt and expectant because that’s how princesses talk.  Peppermint Butler choked.  LSP and Melissa giggled and offered responses you were later forced to deem unreliable at best.  Lady told you things that were interesting albeit not applicable, given that she isn’t humanoid at all.  Not that LSP and Melissa are humanoid either, or Peppermint.  Your findings thus far have been unsatisfactory.  You are unsatisfied.  It is unacceptable.

Marceline looks at you.  “Okay,” she says.  No fanfare, no hesitation, no embarrassment, no teasing.   You rejoice inside.  “What do you want me to tell you exactly?”  Her right eyebrow ascends to meet her hairline.  “Figured you’d have read about the schematics by now, Bookwormy McBrainpants.”  And as it happens, you have indeed perused the stack of volumes in the castle library relating to anatomy and reproduction with your typical vigor.  You tell Marceline that.  She smirks.  “Uh-huh.  So you wanna know something the books don’t say, right?”

Well, wrong.  The books _have_ said.  That’s the problem.  You fidget and Marceline puts her empty bowl down on the coffee table, leaning back into the couch cushions.  Her show comes back on.  She taps the mute button on the remote and you say, “Sex is often described as being pleasurable for both persons.  In, um, in optimal conditions of consent and communication.”

Marceline grins.  Grins wide.  You can see every tooth in her skull.  “Yeah.  Okay?  Still waiting on a question?”

“ _Pleasurable for both persons_ ,” you repeat, exasperated.  “The books say that’s what sex is like, but what’s that even mean?”  Here comes the understatement of the century:  you have been thinking about this a lot.  “What kind of _pleasurable_ are they talking about?”

Marceline purses her lips.  Her head lolls back on her shoulders, boneless, and she blows out a breath and folds her long gray fingers together over her lap.  “Huh,” she says, thoughtfully.  “Good question.”

“Yeah!”  It totally _is_ a good question!  Curling your hands into fists, you knock them against your knees.  You lean forward eagerly.  “Like… like, do they mean pleasurable in the sense of, what, a blue raspberry popsicle on a hot summer day, fresh out the freezer and not melty at all?  Or do they mean the sort of pleasurable that you get when you finish something early and you go outside and it’s still sunny and you were wanting to go swimming, so you’re really happy you’ve still got the time to do that, or—”

Marceline reaches over and closes her whole hand over the lower half of your face.  Your lips buzz her palm.  “Whoa there, sugarcube,” she says.  “Shush it and let me think.”

Fine, fine, you can shush.  She lets go and you wallow sideways into the couch, expectant, trying hard not to squirm.  A dude on the TV explodes in a cartoonish glut of sinew and bright purple blood.  A silent scream ratchets his mouth wide open.  Marceline turns the TV off.  The room fills up with a fuzzy dimness, prickly at the edges, soft in the middle.  She curls a loose arm around you and you burrow your cheek into her armpit, getting a faceful of what she calls sideboob.  It’s cool and soft and familiar:  she’s been your babysitter ever since you can remember.  The two of you are not inexperienced cuddlers.

“It’s probably different for everyone,” she says.  “I mean, people get different kinds of pleasure from sex depending on what they like outside the bedroom.  You know what I’m saying?”

You know what she’s saying.  You can buy that, but—  “So what’s it like for you?”

Marceline stares down at you, the side of her smirk cracked open and threatening to spill out laughter.  “Are you seriously asking me for intricate details about my sex life, Bonni?”

Are you supposed to be sorry?  “Yes.”

“You still eat dinosaur-shaped macaroni!”

The raptors are your favorite.  “I will most likely always eat dinosaur-shaped macaroni,” you tell her.  “When I come of age I might even pass a law prohibiting pasta of any differing formation.  Because the dinosaurs?  Are the best.”

She gives you a squeeze.  You smile into the seam of her sleeve, and she says, “It’s not the same every time, but sometimes sex is a lot like making music for me.  I guess?  Good music, a good jam.  There’s a rhythm and a beat, and a bass, untz-untz-untz, and if I’m lucky and my partner’s feeling it, if they’re feeling me, there’s a crescendo and cymbals doing the shiver all up in my everything, sorta.  Nice slow fadeout after.  Tssssh.”  Her tongue whispers between her teeth.   “It’s pretty boss.”

You consider this.  She rubs her thumb idly along the nape of your neck, like she used to when you were small and sick and sneezy.  Her stomach gurgles.  She smells like cherries.  You say, “Do you think it will be like that for me?  Like music?”

She shrugs.  “I really do _not_ want to speculate on how sex will feel for you, okay?  That’s bordering on pedotastic creepysville.”  But her face does this thing, this weird hardening, and she adds, “It should make you feel good, though.  It should make you happy.  It should make you so, so happy, like—it’s something you don’t want to end, you’re that happy while it’s happening, you like it and the person you’re with so much.  Get me?”

Marceline’s only ever looked so anxious when you made muffins together and accidentally put your bare hand on the tray before it was cool.  You still have the scar, shiny, proud, a weird blob sketched across where your thumb and forefinger meet. 

“I get you,” you say.

She smiles.  Winks.  Offers you the remote.  She says, “Not trying to tell you sex is gonna be perfect the first time, though.  If we’re going with the music metaphor, don’t expect a platinum hit right away, y’know?”

“Scratchy kindergarten recital, maybe?”  You turn on the TV and flick through a few stations.  You settle on a film about rapping, poorly animated chipmunks.

“Bingo.”  Marceline nudges you.  “Hey.  Any other questions, you come talk to me.”

What she doesn’t say—what she doesn’t need to say—is that she’s better than books.  You offer her the hook of your little finger.  She twists hers through yours.  You wring out the promise.  There is a moment of solemnity.

Snatching the remote back from you, though, she says, “We are not watching this stupid squirrel movie,” and changes the channel.


End file.
